BLOG

I love this maxim. With this in mind and heart we have decided it is for new beginnings.

After almost 10 successful years in Santa Catalina, we decided to newly architecture our logo. The original one was inspired by the Mallorcan artist Marc Barberà Antolin, who creted the iron Duke structure which is installed on our entrance wall outside.

His iron creation resembles a wave that is about to close in with the letters DUKE inside the wave.

The German photographer Jan Kohlrtusch then took Marc's art piece and created a digital copy of it, which eventually became the vertical Duke logo.

Quite a story, so why change?

Our original logo is dear to us, nothign is "wrong" with it. As it represents the past, however, we decided to give it a make over.

A lot happened in the last 10 years. We have matured, grown, become wiser, learned hard lessons and managed to redefine ourselves in a new light.

We now are a better version of ourselves. A littles wiser, a little more humble and a little more daring than before.

The new logo was created by Ronny Portulidis, the original founder of the Duke. It is inspired by The Confidante Hotel font in Miami Beach. A place Ronny goes frequently to visit his family.

The reason this logo has been created this way is beacuse it represents, in ronny's eyes, the fine line between order and chaos. Something Duke is known for.

Chaos due to its super high dynamic and its bohemian ambience, packed with world travellers and locals alike of all age groups.

Order due to its commitment for excellence in service, wonderfully prepared food and professional staff. Consistently delivering top service and amazing food.

We hope you like it and will make friends with it. We invite you to become part of our story and part of our growth. After all, we build this place to inspire and comfort you with our creations and service.

I am travelling frequently, having family spread out around the world keeps me moving often.

As much as I like to go visit other places, I do look forward to return to the island. One of the most challenging aspects of travelling, is keeping my balanced nutrition routine steady.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Brazilian feijoada, pan de queijo and quindim (a brazilian lime cake) everytime I am over at my sisters in Brasil for example. Or a good and hearty german Bratwurst from a food stall when visiting my parents in Germany with two handful of fries. Awesome. But that comes with a charge.

It taxes my health system with vitality points. It makes me feel heavy, bloated and eventually not optimal. And this is what this entry is about: Sharing with you what works for me to find the right foods for you, when you are away from home.

Here in Mallorca I know where to find my foods that are in line with my lifestyle. I have my kitchen, my restaurant, my farmer markets and my ingredients. None of them I can however pack in my luggage and carry with me to the whole wide world when travelling.

Once at my destination, the challenge is on by exposing myself to environments that are notknown to me. So what to do?

It is the first thing that gets challenged, starting already at the airport and on the airplane.Although the food offer on most airports has become a little better, whats on offer onboard puts me back to the 80 ́s: bread, pasta, cheese and more bread. The farting concert among the 150+ passengers can start, loosen your seatbelt please.

This article is in fact inspired by two friends of mine, Mateo and Petro, who are currently walking the Camino de Santiago. A one month+ walk, changing places and environments every day. I hope they find value in this post and want to wish them through this way an enlighteningexperience filled with adventure, clarity and growth.

Here what works for me when out of town:

Research before taking off: a few clicks in the internet can reveal useful informations on where to find organic stores, vegetarian or vegan Restaurants* and farmers markets.

Nuts and fruits: A hand full of nuts or a mix of dry fruits and nuts (aka: Trail mix) can serve as healthy snack. Bananas are another staple in my backpack when travelling as well as energy bars (get the good ones that are sweetened with dates and not with sugar).

Here a few other foods that easy to pack for travelling:

Hardboiled eggs (I pack some salt and pepper in a small aluminium paper envelope that I make)

Boiled sweet potatoes (Cut in chunks and simply boiled, or pureed works too)

Avocados and Kiwis, easy to cut in half and spoon out.

Hardware:

Zipplock bags are awesome, open and close as you go. They can be washed out and reused.

If travelling by car, a Box cooler or shoulder Cooler is the way to go for me. Simply throw in a bag of ice cubes or ice gel packs on the bottom of the cooler to maintain the chill and off you go.

Bonus tip: Dark chocolate, Organic cookies and cupcakes are great little foods that suit well for travelling. You can stock up on those in your local organic store.

I hope this entry will help you to have more options now when the question arrises: "I have finally found a grip on healthy food habits and I don ́t know how to maintain this when I am away form home. HOW DO I DO IT?"

FLAVOUR OF THE MONTH: ATROPHY

I would like to share with you my ice cream flavour of the month: It is called ̈Atrophy ̈ and it appears in a number of recipes. Be aware, like ice cream, it can unbalance your health too.(Except maybe my favourite vegan ice creams from Cream Crew ;))

A term used mainly in medicine but also in science and biology to describe degeneration, decline, or decrease, as from disuse, neglect or withdrawal of energy. Doesn’t sound much like chocolate or vanilla, right ? Wait... Follow me into this experience of mine on how look at ̈Atrophy ̈ through my lenses.

A simple concept illustrated by this ice cream drawing:

It may become (hopefully) a portal in understanding your commitments, plans, decisions andintentions in creating a better life style around food as it did for me.

In my previous entry on ̈Emotional eating ̈, I went to the bottom of how important it was for me to gain willpower and cultivate new habits to make better decisions when dealing with my cooking and at food generally.

Maybe by now already, you can sense how ̈Atrophy ̈ plays a key role here when giving up a bad habbit. What does not get you there though is just the intention. What gets you there are the actions. The short terms actions, not the goals. If there is a lack of short term and consistent actions (muscle training) then the relationship corrodes.

By not being aware of the natural force of ̈Atrophy ̈ , my commitments to ̈pull through ̈ wouldhave lasted for only as long as my first cravings for sugary, starchy and fatty foods visited meagain.

I came to understand that my energy of commitment, the power of will, the promise to do it better this time is an energy that I needed to monitor and feed with energy with all I do and all I say.

Differently, Atrophy would have sneaked in and would shatter my well organised set ofcommitments (see illustration).

I found immense value in battling this ongoing fight against Atrophy by surrounding myself with people who hold me up to my commitments and intentions. Who provide support, criticism and the occasional kick in the butt when needed.

More often than not, my views are corrupted and corroded by environment, ego, self-interest and impulsive behaviour. Having family, friends, clients and community close by is a fundamental building block to take on Atrophy and keep those balls of ice cream on my cone.

And one more time… Mind over matter.

There is a 70/30 rule that keeps coming back to me and that holds truth in many aspects of my life. Wether it is in endurance sports, in running my restaurant and with my relationship with food.

The 70% represented by mental will power and 30% represented by physical ability to actually perform the task. Do not fear, keep calm, don´t start reaching out for those potato chips yet, I´ll explain:

30% of the physical aspect of a ¨good-diet¨ has been generously explored since the beginning of time. And that from all sides. In form of slim-fast diets, 5-point weight loss plans, 10-point fat burn programmes, 12-point love handle terminators and so on.

As much as the Earth is made up by 70% of water (emotions) and only by 30% of land (science), our nutritional path to good health and vitality is equally unexplored.

To quote Deepak Chopra: ¨The mind is the key to losing weight. When the mind is satisfied, the body quits craving too much food¨ And thats your 70% right there. In 20 tweetable words.

This quote (along with his genius book - What are you hungry for-) have opened up Pandora's Box for me to ask myself some better questions.

Here my top 10-better-questions-to-myself. *Brought to you by my sponsors from Unilever, Nestle and McDonalds (*That is a joke, in case you were about to spit fire on this blog).

My ¨warm up¨ questions to myself:

Am I in a stable relationship with myself ? Thus, can I trust myself to be held accountable for my decisions?

Have a nurtured my mind through reading and researching what a good diet is and what benefits it has?

Do I have support in my path of becoming a conscious and aware eater?

What do I want to get out of this ? (My WHY)

My ¨on the highway¨¨ questions:

Am I looking at food as ¨object of pleasure, social lubricant and/or a stimulant¨? Or as ¨good fuel¨?

Am I hungry ? Or is it time to eat ? (The 5 most dangerous words in the English language)

Can I cultivate a better relationship with food in order to train the muscles of good decisions?

Am I willing to accept to let go of some people in my life (non-supporters) and let others in my life (supporters)?

Do I keep nourishing my mind and intellect with literature, to deepen my understandings on the health benefits of a good relationship with food ?

I invite you to borrow my glasses on how to look at food through those questions.Hopefully, it will encourage you to ask yourself some better questions too.

Passionate about food?

Beingpassionate about food without having clear what I was actually passionate about, let me down into a rabbit hole of malnutrition, overweight and a wracked body.

In the name of being a ¨Foodie¨ and to top it of, being a Chef, gave me the perfect alibi and excuse to pollute my body with anything that looked good, had a name I could not pronounce and was somewhat exotic.

That included fancy cocktails, rare wines and Picasso like desserts. The bill came not long after: I felt thick, slow, tired, sick. A yellow feeling.

My body did not want to play along anymore. In the name of Foodism, I have perverted my gut, skin and body. Passionate about food?

No Madame, No Sir. Not a good enough question. What am I passionate about?

I am today passionate about how food feels like rather than chasing one mouth pleasure after the other. Spending my money, time and health energy in palaces of gluten, lactose, sugar and alcohol is no longer what I am passionate about.

In return, I feel better than ever. I am coexisting with my body, I have understood how to support and love my body.

After all, this ¨water bag¨ we call body is the only one we got. We might as well look after it as long as we are in its possession.

There is an old saying:

¨The doom of man (and woman) is that his punishment is too far away for him to act upon it now¨. Certainly this was my doom for the longest time of my life. Wether I was smoking, driving without a seatbelt, not wearing a helmet on my motorbike (back in my ¨immortal¨ teenage years) or consuming fatty, sugary and starchy foods.

Not having my punishment served immediately as dessert after each reckless action, made me wonder: ¨Maybe I am getting away with it… all of it¨. As you can imagine, I did not get away with it. With any of those. I had health problems due to years of smoking, I hurt myself crashing, I got sick and heavy.

Few things hold true this doom that unconscious eating. The gradual ¨slow burn¨ of our health through unconscious and impulsive eating is one of the most procrastinated problems our generation faces.

This blog has been started by me to inspire, encourage and support you into a journey of intentional eating. It is a long, delicious and life changing journey that I am taking and invite you to witness my progress, findings, recipes and inspirations.

It will serve you with tools, examples, tricks and hacks to gain autonomy over your own health through food. Hope to see you around here soon.